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Of course it is. Anybody who has taken Econ 101 gets to the Macroeconomic Theory section when it stops making sense because it leaves reality behind. All the parts where it talks about LOCAL economies; household budgets, small business budgets, even local governments have a reasonable number of variables, of incomes, outflows, and actors.

But on a grand scale it really depends on accurately guessing how large groups of humans will behave. That, in turn, depends on how you view people. Being one of us, I assume you view people as actors with a variety of motivations which may be guessed at. The "quality" have a very poor opinion of what they call the "herd". Most of them think God himself has appointed them by birth into the ruling class. They genuinely think we are dirty, smelly, ignorant peasants who would be unable to govern ourselves because being poor is our own fault.This view lets them view groups in their lowest terms: base, animal motivations stemming solely from greed, lust, gluttony, etc. It is a very infantle view of people and leaves out any higher motivations like altruism, conscience, or personal liberty and responsibility found in the mature human psyche possibly because they were never taught them themselves (it's called arrested development of emotional maturity).

This is why the whole capitalist economic system that used to at least allow people a job, car, house, and family has devolved into something approaching feudalism. It is no longer capitalism, it is 1) socialism for the wealthy with subdsidies of every sort2) austerity for the working class with no social safety nets3) a two-tiered criminal system where money talks and poor people are assets4) a tiny middle class used to give the workers empty dreams of improvement

It's great for the one percent, disaster for the 99%. But the wealthy hire lots of lawyers and PR firms to spin gossamer webs of words to keep us from breaking through into reality. That's why all the Mexicans are being demonized as illegal and alien and criminals. I could go on, but I think you get it. The system that worked well in the 1940s through the 1970s has been gradually changed by certain fake-conservative politicians (technically their policies are "Neo-Liberal" economics by definition, like the destructive policies of the International Monetary Fund). If the destructive changes to our system were reversed, the damage would begin to heal, too. The mantra that government is broken and must be swept away is propaganda put out by the very people who, through their inaction and their meddling, have ground that government to a halt. There's a lot of profit to be made and even the continuance of our form of life cannot be allowed to stand in the way.

Capitalism is not against your survival. However it is competitive and requires that those that can't compete take care of themselves, i.e. no safety net. People fall to the side and die on the streets in a strictly capitalistic society but it offers opportunity to all that are smart and hard working (not everyone is smart unfortunately and most would not want to work hard if they can avoid it). This opportunity creation is not available in a communist society for example.

The problem is we dont have real capitalism. We have fake Capitalism where failure (Banks, GM) is rescued by tax payers who have to struggle themselves. This creates bitterness and resentment and hence we are here today.

I need to get clear on what it is about capitalism you feel works. I mean, where are your arguments going? Are you implying that if we just allow totalfreedom for the Free Market idealogy, things will work just fine? Or are you implying if we just deregulate more, the economy will rebound? Or what is your solution to getting capitalism to work?

When Revising History says, "1) socialism for the wealthy with subdsidies of every sort2) austerity for the working class with no social safety nets", is the message that socialism is problem? Actually, I think in this example, clearly INEQUITY is the problem.

Anyways, I'm very interested and hope you'll flesh out your thoughts. And, do you think the right to work (that is, ultimately to survive in an economic system) is a part of our inalienable rights?

nora, here is a reply from somebody who doesn't think much of anything about capitalism works. I have been educating myself regarding economics (certainly from a liberal perspective albeit) over the couple of years, and one of the first things I found out is that the capitalist system craves cheap labor, and the best way to keep labor cheap, aside from slavery, is to have a scarce supply of jobs, which means having a high unemployment rate.

As for Social Darwinism which dominates the thinking of capitalists, they are basically shoving that up the you know whats of the cheap labor upon which they so depend. They think that having been placed into positions which allowed them to rig the system, and having the lack of scruples necessary to allow them to do so, they are somehow superior. They are not. They are inferior beings in reality.